COP21

This morning, under the cover of “energy independence,” U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for a rewrite of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. The Plan is the cornerstone of U.S. commitment to curbing emissions under the Paris climate agreement, so the rewrite represents a significant rollback of U.S. global warming mitigation as a whole. Unlike the rhetoric surrounding health care, no replacement carbon regulation …

The mood in Paris last December was unmistakable, the optimism palpable. After decades of gridlock and disappointment, the negotiation at the COP21 climate conference held to its promise of progress. As Andrew Deutz, Director of International Government Relations for the Nature Conservancy told me, what was different about COP21 from past negotiations was this time “there were no villains.” From the very first day, …

Dean Scott, the senior climate change reporter for Bloomberg, moderated a panel discussion this weekend at the 2016 conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists. The topic at hand was the upcoming U.S. elections and what it means for climate change policy, particularly if Donald Trump wins the presidency. You might think that his position on climate change is “typical” or just “more of …

EarthTalk® is a weekly environmental column made available to our readers from the editors of E/The Environmental Magazine Dear EarthTalk: Why does Donald Trump think we should renegotiate the Paris climate agreement? And will he be able to pull it off if he does get elected President – Betsy Edgewater, Dayton, OH In a May 2016 interview with Reuters, presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump …

At the start of climate change talks this week in Bonn at UN headquarters for the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), outgoing secretary general Christiana Figueres called the historic Paris Agreement the beginning of a “new era of collaboration” for climate negotiations. The 10-day conference in Bonn is the first UN climate meeting since COP 21 in Paris last December. After the formal signing ceremony of the …

Today is Earth Day. What more fitting moment could there be for the official signing ceremony of the Paris Agreement, adopted by 195 nations at the COP21 climate talks in Paris last December, representing 93 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. The opening plenary of the conference on November 30 marked a record for the most heads of state ever assembled in one room at …

G20 and other countries should increase the credibility of their pledges on greenhouse gas emissions – Making credible the ambition expressed in the Paris Agreement becomes the focus in the afterglow of the COP21 climate conference. As always, the devil is in the details. A report released today by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and the ESRC Centre for …